mizChartreuse! redefining success

As I write this, I have been in silence for over 24 hours; I haven’t spoken a single word in over a day. It wasn’t something that happened deliberately, but it simply happened because I’ve been in solitude and I rarely answer phone calls unless it’s a client or the BF or a BFF. I pretty much went off the grid to the world, save for four text messages I sent.

For being completely silent for one whole day, I found that writing came about a bit easier, my thoughts were a bit clearer, and my ideas and perceptions of the world and my life within it became stronger.

The BF, Sean departed Saturday morning for a week-long business trip to California, and I decided I would use this time as a bit of a refractory period dedicated primarily to me doing me, as they say on the Jersey Shore. When you’ve spent 95% of the year living with someone, seeing them every day, it helps to get some time to yourself.

If you know Sean, you know that he is constantly talking, ranting, pacing, joking, and farting– sometimes I just have to tell him to shut up and take it down a notch because he has inexhaustable levels of energy; while I’m always tired but am an insomniac.

So while Sean is across the country on work, I’m having a staycation; a personal mini-retreat into myself. I liked my day of silence, I guess. Well, I didn’t hate it. After yet ANOTHER crazy nonstop weekend of work, partying, and beaches con mis amigos, it was nice to be by myself for one whole day…but also kind of scary. Although I had the distractions of housecleaning and blog-reading and book-reading and stupid TV-watching, I was still very much self-aware and very introspective.

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Tonight I will be coordinating and hosting the Chicago branch of Brazen Careerist’s first-ever WORLDWIDE Meetup Everywhere Event called Crowdsource Your Career. Ryan Paugh, Brazen’s community director, reached out to me last week and invited me to participate in the new project, and I jumped at the chance to actually, you know, host and organize something that speaks to me. Brazen Careerist is a social network for Generation Y professionals to build their resumes and share ideas, and mold-shattering is encouraged.

Come brainstorm (no brainfarting!) with Brazen and miz!

The point of Crowdsource Your Career is to bring together a community of people who are like-minded in that we are forward-thinking go-getters who aren’t held down by conventions or societal norms. Hello, story of my life.

I often say the most important thing in the world is to build relationships, but it goes beyond simply raging with your friends. As a freelance writer, I often read books and blogs about marketing and advertising, and the same concept holds true for entrepreneurs and professionals. You want to gain clients? Build relationships. Want to meet someone who has a career you want? Build relationships and your connections will eventually get you there. Want a simple freakin’ job? BUILD RELATIONSHIPS.

We’ll be meeting at Twisted Spoke tonight at the same time as groups all over the world to have discussions, a good beer or two, and answer the question: What does it mean to be in the driver’s seat of your career and your life? I’ll be taking video footage of the discussion and send it to Brazen HQ, where they’ll create a video montage video of what we, as a worldwide community, created through having intelligent conversations with one another.

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If you’re new to this blog, you may want to check out part I of “Possibility Girl” here.‘

In the first installment of “Possibility Girl,” I wrote about seeking medical assistance from a doctor for what I thought was an ADD problem because I was having trouble focusing on my multiple projects and hectic life. The doctor gave me a 2-month prescription for 10 milligrams of Prozac to be taken once daily, and referred me to the UIC Psychiatry department for further counseling. I filled the prescription and started taking the drug in the hopes that it would “fix” me. I also started exercising three to four days a week as opposed to the two or three times a month where I got the motivation to get off the couch and go to the local YMCA.

I didn’t feel very extreme emotions in either direction, but I also didn’t have the feeling of numb emotionless-ness that many people report with antidepressants. I just felt “normal,” whatever that means. But could I attribute it to the pill? Or was it the fact that I was staying active, being social with my friends, and that the weather was getting nicer? I mean, ten milligrams of Prozac isn’t very much, when the average user takes around 40 milligrams. But then again, I was never suicidal nor bouncing off the walls manic to begin with.

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For all the wonders the Internet brings us, social media has created some serious monsters. Fame m-m-m-monsters.

This is how it works: give a monkey a WordPress and Twitter account, and suddenly they’re a Social Media Marketing Guru Expert Millenial Coach who will Change Your Life!! with their affiliate program that will gain you ten thousand followers in nanoseconds and lead you on the path to the becoming a millionaire, all while working from home.

It’s laughable, yes, but the immediacy and accessibility of the web has given us self-proclaimed gurus whose Twitter profiles explain that they:

They might also ”Maximise breakthrough by leveraging influencers!” or ”Harness social currency to drive buzz!”

Thank you, What the Fuck is my Social Media ‘Strategy’ dot com.

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What in the world does any of that even mean? “Sounds complex!” You think. “They must really know how to utilize social networks to maximize profits!”

It means nothing. It’s all fluff, but the low barriers to social media networks mean that people can claim to be anything they want to be. No legitimate non-Hollywood celebrity millionaire is spending EVERY WAKING MOMENT Tweeting this link and that link. STFU. There’s no such thing as a social media marketer, dude.

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I love artistry, creativity, and originality, but I also understand that people are influenced by others. It’s one thing to be a poseur, blatantly ripping off other artists. However, I think it’s another thing to take what you’ve been exposed to, and use a piece of art as inspiration to create something new. How many things are purely original? I mean, even if you draw a picture of a tree with crayons, your coloring will still be your own rendering of something that already exists.

Getting to the point- I only realized last night that pop/r&b/rock band Hanson’s music video for their latest single, “Thinkin’ Bout Something” was a complete homage to the scene in the movie Blues Brothers where John Belushi, Dan Aykroyd, and Ray Charles perform “Shake A Tail Feather.”

“We love playing classic songs,” says Zac Hanson in the band’s official biography. “But we never sat down and wrote our version of what that sounds like until now.”

They literally replicated the dances in the movie, nearly frame for frame, in their music video. I knew that that video was inspired by the movie, but I didn’t realize that they were so similar when played simultaneously.

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